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Using ICT to help students prepare for their GCSE Speaking Test: supporting different learning styles through ICT
'It has been fun to make the video and will definitely help me to remember my presentation.' Max, Year 10 student.
Context
Helston Community College is a mixed 11-19 establishment with more than 100 teaching staff and 1626 pupils, of whom over 356 are in the Sixth Form. It is situated at the gateway to the Lizard, Britain’s most southerly point. HCC is a Specialist Technology College and is set in twenty-two acres of playing fields. In addition to standard classrooms, the school has a range of specialist facilities and equipment including purpose-built music and MFL blocks. The college is recognized as an established 'Quality in Study Support' centre for its Out-Of-Hours-Learning facilities. At the heart of their provision is DISC, their Drop In Study Centre.
View some of the good practice described below in the case study.
Key objectives
- To make creative use of ICT to help students to prepare for their GCSE speaking test
- To support different learning styles through the use of ICT
How the programme is organised
At Helston students of all ages groups are encouraged to make full use of the opportunities that ICT has to offer them in supporting their learning.
Year 8 pupils have created their own Spanish blog to record a day in the life of the college. Year 9 French students are beginning to work with Windows Movie Maker to create their own short animations in the form of a French Whodunnit? Students in Year 12 have created their own podcast offering advice in Spanish on staying fit and healthy.
Windows Movie Maker, Audacity and Flickr are currently being used to create revision materials for Years 10/11 for their speaking conversation tests and they plan to have Year 10 Spanish students create their own revision videos using the same software.
Helston has kindly made available to download a document explaining how to make your own video presentation using Windows Movie Maker, Audacity and Flickr (doc, 1.6MB) which they give to students.
Evidence of success
Although there is no firm evidence to support the link between the use of ICT and student uptake, for the last two years languages has been the most popular option choice out of all the subjects on offer at KS4. The languages department at Helston endeavours to ensure that all groups have access to a digital language laboratory at least once a fortnight where there is a wide range of resources. Over the last two to three years students have been encouraged to be more creative by offering them a degree of independence through project work such as creating stories.
'The revision video is an innovative and impressive tool that will certainly help pupils to prepare for the speaking component of the examination. It has clearly motivated the students who have participated in the project.' Andy Dalgleish, Head of Cultural Studies Faculty.
Future developments
The current project of using Windows Movie Maker is one that is being used with Spanish students in KS4 but it is hoped to extend it to other year groups and languages next year involving other members of the department. Some Year 9 French groups are using the software to create video animations. It is hoped to develop this project further by having students create similar video projects for younger students.
James Pearson, the Head of MFL at Helston, has delivered a number of INSET sessions to modern languages’ teachers, both locally and nationally, and would ultimately like to offer something similar based on this current project of using video created using Windows Movie Maker, Audacity, and photos/clip art courtesy of Flickr. In the longer term it is hoped to continue creating video tutorials for students and teachers that would cover a variety of uses of ICT in languages teaching.
Further resources
- James Pearson’s website where there are examples of podcasts and videos and tutorials for students and teachers. There is a video tutorial and help sheet on using Windows Movie Maker in the ICT tutorials section.
- Podcasting with JimmyP - GCSE Spanish conversation topics and exam tips.
- El podcast del misterioso Señor Pearson - Vocabulary podcast for Year 10 Spanish based on ¡Listos! 3 textbook
- James' podcast - Spanish grammar podcasts
- Helston Community College's Spanish pod - some student podcasts
- HCC's blog of blogs - James Pearson’s blog giving examples of podcasts and videos
Author: James Pearson, Helston Community College
